[Sidenote: _The Soldiers' share._]

The war was practically the purchase price of this prodigious wealth,
but it effected no transfer in the ownership. It may have in part to
provide for the expenses of the war, but it is not claimed by the
British Government as part of the spoils of war; and when Local
Government is granted it will still be included in local assets. The
capitalists, colonists and Kaffirs who live and thrive through the
mines will thrive yet more as the result of juster laws, ample
security, and a more honest administration; but the soldiers whose
heroism brought to pass the change profit nothing by it. The niggers
driving our carts were paid L4 a month, while the khaki men who did
the actual fighting were required to content themselves with anything
over about fifteen pence a day.

When Cortez, with his accompanying Spaniards, discovered Mexico, he
sent word to its ruler, Montezuma, that his men were suffering from a
peculiar form of heart disease which only gold could cure; so he
desired him of his royal bounty to send them gold and still more gold.
In the end those Spanish leeches drained the country dry; though when
convoying their treasure across the sea no small portion of it was
seized by English warships, and shared as loot among the captors.
After the treasure ship _Hermione_ had thus been secured off Cadiz by
the _Actaean_ and the _Favorite_, each captain received L65,000 as
prize-money (so Fitchett tells us); each lieutenant, L13,000; each
petty officer, L2000; and each seaman, L500. Our fighting men and
officers found in the Transvaal vastly ampler wealth, but no such luck
and no such loot. Well would it be, however, if these mining
Directorates when about to declare their next dividends should bethink
them generously of the widows and orphans of those whose valour and
strong-footedness rescued their mines from imminent plunder and
destruction.

[Sidenote: _The Golden City._]

Johannesburg, which we entered unopposed on May 31st, though it covers
an enormous area and contains several fine buildings, is only fourteen
years old, and consequently is still very largely in the corrugated
iron stage of development which is always unlovely, and in this case
proved specially so. Many of the houses were deserted, most of the
stores were roughly barricaded, and there were signs not a few of
recent violence and wholesale theft, at which none need wonder. Long
before the war broke out there was pre